7 years without toilet paper

One of my favorite things to do is play Fantasy Football.  It makes watching the NFL so much fun.  I have a Mom's Only league that has been together for 8 years.  Different people have come and gone, but it is such a great time every year no matter who plays.  I love it.  Some moms have super cool team names, but for some reason I got into the habit of letting the kids pick my names.  They are pretty out there sometimes but I end up working well them.  Here is my list of names from the beginning:

2005 Mama look at ME (from the girls)

2006 AnderBuddy (Bud)

2007 Hungry Landsharks (all of them)

2008 Bad Wazzoos (all of them - once they learned Wazzoo meant butt, I had to use it)

2009 Big Bad Poodles (Ainsley Grace)

2010 Shake and Bake (all of them and a little of Stan)

2011 Lava Sus Manos (Lulu)

2012 Dominating Donuts (Ainsley Grace's obsession - she insisted I have a donut name)

Here is the drafting room right before everyone arrived.... I wish I had a picture of all the cute mamas who participate.

Another oddity is almost every year, our draft ends up being on my birthday.  Of course I never say anything, but one squeaky wheel keeps announcing it to everyone.  Last year they brought me some pretty sweet 40th gifts.  

This year, they went nuts.  These crazy moms decided to wish me a Happy Birthday in a brand new, footballesque, nasty smack talk manner.  We went 7 years without having to come to this.  After the draft, I went to put the baby down to sleep.  After he fell asleep, I went back downstairs to get our draft sheets and I glanced outside.  My eyes bulged.  

They are nothing but low life pastry haters!  ;-)  

Kids loved it.

5 Steps for back to school

 Step 1:  Decorate Lockers!

Step 2:  Buy Lunch Boxes

Step 3:  Buy Lunch Food

Step 4:  Buy Backpacks

Step 5:  Haircut!

READY!  I will miss you sweet kids.... 

 

Verbatim

"Mommy, thanks for helping me build this car.  This counts as Mommy Anderson time."  Many things we do, "don't count."  Check for me.

"Mommy, how long is the ride to Vietnam?  Do you think we could ride in his suitcase?"

"Oh look, a marker.  Here, let me stick it in my eye....."

Galveston

We got to take a family vacation to celebrate Stan FINALLY FINALLY finishing Law School and Bar studies.  We headed down south 5 hours and the next thing you know you are on the beach.  We went with our college friends and their families.  We had always heard iffy things about Galveston Beach but I'm not sure why.  We were all very pleasantly surprised, it's a beautiful place and a great place for the kids.  It had a ton of things to do.  We spent lots of time on the beach and the kids loved it.  Whit of course was covered from head to toe and ear to ear in sand.   The big kids loved playing and digging.  They hadn't dug in sand since they were little at Gma and Gdads house, but they knew exactly what to do.

 

 

One night we had a super fancy dinner of fresh fish a Gaidos.  YUM.  Lexi even tried crab and boiled shrimp!  Another night we went down to the Pleasure Pier.  It had just opened up in May of 2012 because of the Hurricane damage of Ike.  It was pretty fun.  Kids loved it.

Pretty views.....

 On the last full day there we walked out to the beach to set up and low and behold, an act of nature made us all gasp!  There was a "fish kill" which apparently is caused by lack of oxygen.  There were hundred's of thousand's of dead fish alllllll over the beach!  It was nasty nasty.  We were pretty grossed out but tried to make the best of it at first.  Stan went and grabbed a rake and started clearing a spot for us on the beach.... We looked over and noticed a photographer snapping pictures of him flinging the fish.  He had turned it into some sort of sport..... Well, come to find out, Stan's picture got plastered on the front page of the Galveston newspaper, THEN the picture got "picked up" and ran in the Houston, Austin and the national paper USA Today...  Apparently the Diane Sawyer morning program also showed the photograph.  So, Stan has now added Famous Fish Flinger to his resume.

We finally got too grossed out and decided to take the kids to Palm Beach at Moody Gardens.  That whole Moody Gardens campus was pretty incredible.... Palm Beach was great, it had a Lazy River, wave pool and places for Whit to run, splash and play.  Turned out to be a very nice day.....  Here are the goofballs with their Siberian Chill.  Brain freeze!

 Goodbye Galveston, thank you for such a fantastic trip for our family!

The Pines

My big girl got away for a week of summer camp.  Swimming, games, archery and more, but most importantly, praising God.   The Pines Catholic Camp is just incredible.  She had a wonderful time.  But the real good news was after the week was over and we went to pick her up, when I saw her I cried and when she saw me she cried.  Love her. A lot.

My friend took this picture.  I totally embarrassed her trying to unpack for her, so once we picked up on the vibe - we left....  But she was super nervous so it was hard to leave her. But, sure enough, after we left, her friend showed up and she was super happy.  Yay.  

She spent a lot of time with her friend.  But her and J also got to meet two other girls that she really liked and became friends with.  AND she also had an autistic girl in her cabin who was a sweet girl and Lexi got to really appreciate how to interact with someone with special needs and enjoy such a wonderful person as the special human being that she is. She also had a girl... with... an... odd personality.... Learning experience.  She LOVED her counselors "Flo" and "Bakerella" by the way.... I appreciate them for making her experience so great.

We pre-addressed and stamped her stationary and she wrote letters to her grandmas and her cousins and we got THREE letters.  She is so awesome.  I'm so glad she had such a wonderful time.  Thank you Pines for such a fun, safe and sandy place.  My other little girl is talking about you non-stop - she wants her turn BAD... to be cont'.

We love you lulu.